


it's a losing game

by Anonymous



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Friends, Future Fic, Growing Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-02 21:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10952766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: He springs into relevé devant like the release of tension from a taut bowstring, but Otabek thinks that maybe the tension has never really left Yuri at all. And the pursuit of perfection is costly, but it's not too high for him.





	it's a losing game

**Author's Note:**

> The gorgeous art below is created by the talented [creatures-from-starlight](http://creatures-from-starlight.tumblr.com). Thank you for this prettiness — which has enthralled me from the moment I first laid eyes on it: the tranquillity! Yuri's dead-eyed stare! Otabek looking at Yuri! — and also your great prompt, and for the chance to write about ballet like this. It's been fun.
> 
> And of course, my gratitude to the lovely Reverse Bang mods for organising this wonderful event.

*** * ***

**IT'S A LOSING GAME**

*** * ***  

*****

**i. OTABEK**

*****  

_Summer, 2011_

Humiliation has a taste, and it’s like this: cold and sharp and stifling, clinging stubbornly to the corners of his mouth like the syrup of the over-sweet varenye that they serve as a dessert, here. He’s never liked sweet things. He hates it. He hates it so much.

And at times like these, he hates his body too: how finesse is not a thing to be commanded at will, at least not for him, how effort doesn’t necessarily translate to execution. How he feels awkward and ill-at-ease in his own body, long limbs and uncoordinated joints and all, especially when compared to Yuri Plisetsky, prodigy skater, ten years old, from Moscow, very promising.

Of course, ten-year-old Yuri Plisetsky has exquisite technique.

It’s difficult not to watch him, but watching him, there’s a certain sort of devastating inevitability. Or perhaps he’s got it the wrong way around: maybe the devastating inevitability is what makes Yuri so particularly mesmerising. Yuri holds fifth position with an ease that seems completely alien to the unnatural arrangement of his feet, and then he springs up into relevé devant like the release of tension from a taut bowstring.

En pointe, working leg drawn to a precise angle, front foot under the knee. Right arm in fifth position, bird-like wrist raised above his head. Suspended in motion.

Yuri has the looks for a porcelain doll, brand new out of the box, fearless and unmarked by time. Or maybe he is more like a marionette, following the pull of string.

Otabek lets his breath out as he follows Yuri in the descent into a plié.

The mirror is to his right, but he hasn’t glanced at it yet. He doesn’t need it, when he can see all of his own imperfections reflected back from Yuri’s exactitude. He catalogues them clinically in his mind: his working leg is too lazy. His wrist has probably none of that feather-lightness that’s present in Yuri’s. And there’s something to do with his posture, but he can’t pin down exactly what he’s doing differently.

What he’s doing wrong.

Yuri doesn’t seem to notice. Yuri has followed Miss Lebedeva’s commands to a fault all throughout the lesson, but his gaze is dead-eyed, staring back at Otabek like he wouldn’t recognise him tomorrow.

Is he even seeing what’s in front of him? Is he even seeing Otabek?

Slowly and deliberately, in the next relevé derrière, Otabek lets his working leg slip.

It’s not a huge deviation: his foot ends up more to the side of his supporting leg, rather than the back of the knee. But it would have ruined the line of his body; an awkward heaviness in place of the relative fluidity, before. He watches as Yuri’s eyes snap down to the flaw immediately.

When they come up again to meet Otabek’s gaze, he notices that they’re an odd shade of green. Mildly accusing, like a cat’s.

In any case— Yuri’s alive, then. The complete dedication to his craft is a little frightening for someone who doesn’t appear to enjoy it at all, but at least Otabek can be assured that Yuri’s not some super-robot engineered by the FFKK. Probably.

(He has to take his amusements whenever he can. Otherwise, he’ll be too busy feeling sorry for himself.)

* * *

Otabek turns up to the next day’s lesson early. That’s what he usually does; he likes the extra time to stretch, unhurried. To pick a nice spot on the barre, to collect his thoughts.

The studio is already occupied by the time he arrives. He watches as the blond-haired figure stands en pointe. Raises his right leg behind himself in a second arabesque. À demi hauteur, à la hauteur. It’s with an impending sense of finality when Yuri lifts his working leg even further up into the air, until it is completely vertical from the ground.

He doesn’t tremble. He holds the position as easy as breathing, and it makes for a pretty tableau: the danseur, the barre, the motes of dust floating in the morning sunlight. The stillness like a scene from a snowglobe, with all of its intangibility, fragility.

“Hello.” Otabek finally breaks the silence. Yuri immediately drops his leg and whirls around, and Otabek watches as the earlier aplomb slips from his posture. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m—”

“I know you. You’re Otabek Altin.” Yuri Plisetsky sounds matter-of-fact. Dispassionate, and its flatness is strange to hear in the fluting voice of a kid barely older than ten. A kid so skinny he looks like he could be blown over by the slightest of Petersburgian sea breeze. “You won gold at the Merano Cup last season.” Yuri pauses there, then adds abruptly, as if being prompted, “Congratulations.”

Otabek opens his mouth— but then closes it abruptly. He lets himself stare at Yuri, whose body language has changed entirely. Now, there’s an insolent bend of his knee, a jut of his chin, a slouch of his shoulders. He looks out of place. Like he doesn’t belong in the pristine crispness of these mirrored walls, these spotless floorboards.

But then Otabek moves further into the room, and Yuri straightens up. Possibly eager to eliminate the height difference between them. There it is again — that dancer’s poise, the liquid grace melting across the line of his back.

Measured casualness, Otabek thinks suddenly, that’s what it is. Yuri is trying to school himself into a facade of indifference.

“Thanks,” Otabek says eventually. “I guess I know who you are, too.” There’s no point in prevarication.

A suggestion of what might be a smile flits over Yuri’s face. “Keeping tabs on the competition?” he asks.

“Is that what you’re doing?”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “What do you think? In five years, I’m going to be the World Champion. I need to know my rivals.”

The first emotional response that Otabek has seen from him, really, and Otabek waits patiently as his idea of the vacant-eyed kid rearranges itself in his mind. If he’s a product of the FFKK, he’s a very literal and well-programmed one. Otabek supposes that the words themselves should be remarkable. Five years, that’s rather— but what is even more interesting is Yuri’s reaction to his own exclamation. He flushes slightly, and then he looks away.

Otabek knows something about hopes that he doesn’t dare to speak out loud, so he prompts: “World Champion?”

“Senior World Champion,” Yuri says, steel incongruent in the words. He raises his head and stares at Otabek. Eyes glittering. Daring him to object, Otabek guesses. “And then after that, I’m gonna go to the Olympics. Win gold.”

“Right.”

Yuri doesn’t seem impressed. “You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t even really know you.” Otabek shrugs apologetically. “I don’t have an opinion on what you can do. Sorry.”

“Everyone will know who I am,” Yuri says, “in five years.”

There’s a belligerent edge to his voice, but there’s also something in it that makes Otabek— a little sad, perhaps. The specific time frame, like a best-before date. Something about that determination, and on the other side of the coin, a thinly-veiled desperation.

He’s so young, and Otabek wonders who exactly he’s trying to convince.

“Okay,” Otabek agrees peaceably. “Okay.”

He walks to a place on the barre on the other side of the room. Sits down on the floor, feels the reassuring stretch of his hamstrings as he leans forward to touch his feet. It’s still a little cold in the studio, even with the illusion of warmth afforded by the weak rays of overcast sun. But it’s alright: he’ll warm up soon enough.

* * *

In this class, it’s easier to keep up with the grand allegro. Miss Lebedeva calls for her students to dance it in pairs, and when Yuri suddenly appears at his side, Otabek schools his surprise into composure.

Yuri doesn’t say anything, but when Otabek smiles at him, he offers a small upturning of his mouth in response.

A little like a cat, Otabek thinks again. Wanting your attention, but refusing to ask for it. Otabek resigns himself to the feeling of inferiority that’s inevitable with executing the routine alongside the best student in the class. But the grand allegro isn’t too bad; it’s probably Otabek’s favourite part of the class.

Of course, the jumps don’t really feel like flying like how the jumps on the ice do, but the temporary defiance of gravity is quite similar.

Yuri approaches this last part with an unyielding intensity. There’s hints of the beautiful monster he’s yet to become. It’s a moment amongst the uneven trample of their feet against wooden floorboards in which Otabek finally comes to a realisation that should hardly be revolutionary.

He’ll never be able to reach Yuri’s standard. Of course, this becomes clearer with the more glances that he steals from him.

But something dips unpleasantly in his chest anyway, before he methodically crushes it into something to deal with later. Forces himself to mirror Yuri’s feline lightness in the jeté landing.

A star like that— he’s got to fall, some day. With a sick jolt, Otabek realises that he doesn’t want to be around to see it. And it’s an alien feeling, not being good enough, but it’s also been somewhat of a recurring theme this summer.

“I was wrong,” Otabek tells Yuri after the class, as they’re changing out of their shoes.

Yuri looks up at him strangely. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought that you didn’t like ballet,” Otabek says. “You never seemed to enjoy it.”

“I _don’t_.” There’s a strange note in Yuri’s voice. If Otabek had to guess, he would say: relief. The voicing of something he hadn’t previously dared to confess out loud, maybe. Then: “I’m good at it, but that’s less to do with me, is it? I just have a nice instrument for it. I just have to listen to what they tell me to do.”

“No. I mean,” Otabek pauses, thinks about how to word it. “You like the jumps. I saw the way that you take off. The joy. There’s no way that you could be so good at them otherwise.”

“It feels like flying,” Yuri says, as though that explains everything.

Cheating inevitability for snatched moments. Portraying weightlessness, the facsimile of flight, and maybe freedom. Hurling himself into oblivion, before being drawn back down to earth.

Making it all seem effortless.

Yes, Otabek thinks he can start to see how it fits together.

And then: “The jumps,” Yuri says slowly. “You’re good at them, too.”

It’s a stilted compliment; he’s trying. He’s clearly unaccustomed to saying things like these, and it sort of makes Otabek want to laugh — fondly — at his ineptitude.

But if Otabek looks closer, there’s tension in the line of Yuri’s shoulders. There’s no eyes on him anymore, no hovering instructors who might put in a good word to Yakov Feltsman. What does he have to be nervous about?

Maybe the tension is always there, thrumming like a live wire. Susceptible to tripping, at any time.

A kinder person maybe would have attempted at some form of reassurance. But Yuri is a mystery wrapped in a prickly bush, and Otabek has never considered himself to be particularly kind— to others, or himself.

* * *

There’s a delicate process in making varenye. It’s not too difficult, but it’s like this: the fruit is stirred in with sugared syrup, sometimes honey, and the mixture is cooked through. You need to strike a careful balance here, though: it needs to be boiled enough so that the flavour is extracted, and the sugar penetrates the fruit, but too long— that’ll make the fruit break down. That’s not good. The fruit needs to stay intact. Well, it’s not always fruit. Sometimes it’s rose petals, or even orange peels. It’s healthy.

Or so Yuri tells him during dinner, after Otabek gives him his own serving.

“I don’t like it,” Otabek explains shortly. “It’s too sweet.”

Yuri accepts the offering with a dubious frown. “I’ve always liked it better in pirozhki,” he says, and then he looks away. He looks like he has inadvertently revealed something about himself. Otabek doesn’t feel too inclined to puzzle that out.

They sit together, but they’re not exactly friends. Not really. Reluctant acquaintances would perhaps be a better descriptor: drawn together by circumstances, hovering around each other in wary curiosity.

At least Otabek assumes that’s why Yuri continues to materialise by his side like a cat, pawing about new territory.

And they’re both not here to socialise, so the silence isn’t awkward. Otabek doesn’t feel the need to soften his bluntness.

“You’re pretty stressed out for a ten-year-old,” he says, offhand, to Yuri one day. “Maybe you should focus on some other interests too.”

“I told you, I’ve got it planned out,” Yuri tells him. “Junior debut in three years. Senior debut in five years. And Pyeongchang, after. But if I can’t...”

He trails off, but Otabek can fill in the blanks. If he slacks off, if Yakov Feltsman doesn’t accept him as a pupil, if he injures himself, if his body betrays him.

“It doesn’t always work out that way.” Obviously.

“You don’t get it,” Yuri says. “It has to. It will.”

He says that to a near-stranger whilst gracelessly slouched in his chair, straw from a juice box dangling from his lips. He says that, but Otabek thinks that maybe it’s a weak attempt to disguise his desperation. Maybe he wants something so much, more than he can bear to even admit or think about, so he has to pretend otherwise.

Takes one to know one, really.

* * *

On the last day of the camp, Victor Nikiforov turns up at lunchtime. It’s not very surprising; Yakov Feltsman has supposedly been popping in and out of the camp, and Victor seems outgoing and magnanimous enough to spare a few minutes for his young admirers.

The skaters all crowd around him excitedly, but Otabek watches as Yuri hangs back. He doesn’t seem starstruck, or shy. He seems almost—

“Scared,” Otabek realises out loud. Something finally clicks into place. “You’re scared.”

Yuri jumps slightly, and scowls at him. “Scared? Of what?”

“Victor Nikiforov.”

“Shut up, I’m not scared,” Yuri snaps.

“There’s no reason to be, anyway,” Otabek says. “I’m sure he’ll like you fine, when you start training with him.”

“I _said_ , I’m— whatever.” The fight slips out of Yuri as easily as it came. “You don’t get it. I just don’t want to be a puppet,” Yuri says, “following someone else’s directions. Following someone else’s path, like that’s all I’m good for. That’s it.”

“You think you’ll turn out like Victor Nikiforov?” Otabek’s genuinely curious.

Yuri doesn’t say anything for a while. When he finally replies, he says: “I”m saying that he’s the last thing that I want to end up like.”

And then: “Whatever. Just forget about it.”

*****

**ii. YURI**

*****

_Spring, 2017_

Pumping music and multi-coloured lights. Plates and abandoned glasses scattered on cloth-laden tables. Conversation and laughter hang in the air, and it’s partially the imminent threat of evisceration by Lilia that keeps Yuri at this banquet.

Of course, he knows that ostensibly a well-rounded skater should also possess decent social skills, and graciousness, and— some other things, which seem to have slipped from his memory at this moment in time. Very unfortunate. Well, he’s being social — that’s why he’s smugly accepting the effusive congratulations from all sides.

Not because it gives him an ego boost, or anything.

(“Of course not,” Mila had drawled earlier, brazenly pressing a flute of champagne into his hand when Yakov’s attention was elsewhere. “God. Gold at your first Senior Worlds. You’re going to be insufferable when we get back to Russia, aren’t you?”)

When Victor comes by, Yuri’s mood darkens. He pointedly turns away.

“Come on, Yurio.” Victor’s shit-eating grin is infuriating. “This is amazing. I never would have thought that you would be so angry about winning.”

Yuri growls inarticulately. “If you weren’t so _shit_ in your free skate— those pops were ugly as fuck. _Katsudon_ probably could have skated that better than you, and he doesn’t even have a quad lutz.”

Victor doesn’t look repentant. He shrugs breezily. “Well, skating’s like that. That’s what keeps everything interesting! You should know that, Yurio.”

“I know that you’ve never messed up your flip like you did! And I know that you don’t train half as much as you used to!”

Victor puts his hands up in a self-deprecating gesture. “Of course I don’t, I can’t coach Yuuri and train like that at the same time!”

The most aggravating thing is that Victor looks exactly as he used to. Expensive suit, tailored perfectly, that stupid styled hair, that blithe attitude. He still looks like the legend, when he’s only a dying star.

Yuri didn’t realise that it would be quite so difficult to come to terms with that.

“What’s the point of competing, then?” Yuri snaps at him. “Pick one or the other. You’re only going to injure yourself. You’re going to fade away into a cripple. Soon you’ll be setting off metal detectors at every airport and they’re all just gonna feel sorry for you.”

“Do you think that I haven’t heard all of this before?” Victor is still smiling but his voice is flat. “Why do I have to choose between skating or Yuuri? Why do you, of all people, think that I don’t deserve to—”

“Don’t give me that shit about your two Ls again.” Yuri’s collar feels tight, and his voice is rising. “Do you think you’re so special? To get what we want, we all know what we sacrifice!” He suddenly feels short of breath, but he keeps going. A train driven by momentum, jackknifing through a sharp bend. “You keep on saying that you’ve given up twenty years — so what? Skating _was_ your life, like it’s ours. And you were perfectly happy with it, until you weren’t! What do you mean, you didn’t have love? You knew perfectly well that there were people who _cared for you_!”

Victor is staring at him. The playfulness has evaporated from his face. His expression is blank and his eyes are inexpressive, like a door has slammed shut somewhere inside his mind.

He looks so awful and so terrible, and that paralysing fear steals into Yuri’s chest again.

 _That’s me_ , Yuri realises, not for the first time. _That’s me in the future_ , and then he’s stumbling through the throngs of people, drunk on nothing but horror. Out into the empty hallway, where it’s warmly lit and noisy conversations fade to a distorted murmur. He punches the marble-tiled wall, because he can.

Then he stares at his reddening knuckles in fascination. He prods at the skin, morbidly curious, and the additional flare of pain isn’t entirely unwelcome, or unbearable. He can just imagine Lilia’s screwed-up-lemon face when she sees what he’s done, but—

He jumps when something freezing touches his hand.

He looks up. Otabek is there, and then suddenly Yuri feels tired and childish.

The World Champion throwing a tantrum outside the closing banquet. He glances around for any stray members of the press. He can imagine the headlines and the tweets already.

He straightens up, but Otabek grabs onto the wrist of his hand, pressing a folded cold towel onto his knuckles firmly. Yuri shifts his fingers experimentally and feels the crunch of cubed ice.

“I told you,” Yuri says. “I told you that I didn’t want to turn out like him. But then I went and won my first Senior Worlds, just like how I wanted, and—”

“Try to not punch any more walls,” Otabek replies.

Yuri stares at him. There’s a strange warmth prickling at the back of his neck.

“Okay,” he says.

Otabek looks nice in his suit, Yuri thinks distantly. It probably helps that it actually fits him, not like those horrible awkward suits that they all get involuntarily stuffed into in their junior years. Otabek should maybe wear this suit more often. And maybe Yuri should grow up and stop that — jealousy, probably — from making his chest feel odd. Yuri has never felt very comfortable in clothes like these.

With his uninjured hand, he reaches up to pull viciously at his tie.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Otabek’s expression is inscrutable.

“Okay,” Yuri says again.

It’s quiet. From the large window at the end of the corridor, Yuri can see the fluorescent lights of Boston, bright and electric and alive. Below, the traffic would be bustling even at this hour; people with places to go and things to do and homes to return to.

Otabek follows his gaze outside. “We could go anywhere you want.”

“I don’t care,” Yuri says. “Just take me away from here.”

* * *

On Otabek’s motorbike, the glittering lights fly past them, merging together like rivers of bright gold poured from the expanse of the sky. They cross an orange-lit bridge, end up at a park. Yuri pulls off his tie entirely and flops onto a patch of grass, letting his hair splay out messily. Of course, Otabek sits himself down with more dignity.

“I’m getting my motorbike licence this summer,” Yuri tells him.

“Why?”

Yakov had asked him that, too. In language that was decidedly less-polite, though. So had Mila, and Lilia, and—

Yuri shrugs. “Because I can. Because I wanted to. Because you have it. Pick any one.”

“If you did everything that you _could_ , or _wanted—_ ” Otabek seems to stare at Yuri’s bandaged hand particularly pointedly, “—then you’re probably going to end up dead. Or maybe more likely, in jail. Or—”

“Whatever.” Yuri scowls and sits up, so that his glared displeasure can be better conveyed to its recipient. “ _You_ do it, though. _You’ve_ always done whatever you wanted to, no matter what anyone else thought.”

Otabek looks back at him, and the hypocritical asshole seems amused. “I think it’s cool,” he says finally. “You can drive me around next time, instead of always relying on me to help you escape from things that you don’t want to deal with.”

Yuri lets himself be quiet for a moment. In front of them, there’s spartan silver railings and a nice view across the river. Studded skyscrapers loom in the inky darkness like monoliths, tempered by the distance.

Here’s the thing about skating: one day, you’ll be forced to grow up. You injure yourself, or your body starts failing to obey your orders, and then you’ll wake up. You’ll realise that you have to leave yourself behind.

But your identity is contingent on your skating; you’ve only ever matured as an athlete. In all the other aspects of life, you're still a child.

Otabek, though: if you took the skating away from him, he would still be a person.

If you took skating away from Yuri— well.

Sometimes, Yuri thinks that the clockwork routine of his days are delineated by the things that Otabek does. Tell me about Canada. Tell me about life out of a suitcase. Tell me about biking, Yuri had asked him when Otabek bought his first motorcycle, and Otabek had told him about how the wind felt against his face.

How it sort of felt like flying. How it felt free.

“I thought that it would be different,” Yuri says eventually. “Winning. I did everything that they told me to.” He plucks out some blades of grass, ripping them into confetti-sized pieces. “And I won. But I’ve never been like you. I’ve never been satisfied with what I do.”

He trails off. Chucks the grass-confetti towards the water, but they barely make it past his outstretched feet.

“They raised you for gold like a pig for slaughter.” Otabek says. “You never knew anything else.” He sounds vexed, and Yuri glances at him strangely before shrugging.

“I wanted it. I wanted it so much. And I thought, if that’s what it takes to win, then what does it matter? Why should I care that now I feel like there has to be something more than this? And you.” Yuri leans closer to him. “You beat Victor Nikiforov this time. If you just held onto your quad flip, you would have beaten me. You know that. Why aren’t you even angry? At me, or at yourself? I don’t get it, Otabek.”

Otabek is looking across the water, so Yuri deliberately moves closer to get into his line of vision. He probably misjudges or something, because when Otabek finally glances at him, his face is a lot closer than Yuri thought.

His pupils are blown wide in the low light. His breaths make little puffs of steam. Maybe Yuri should move away. Maybe Otabek should just say something already.

But his eyes are magnetic, and Yuri wants to solve this mystery. He wonders what it would be like to break out of this limbo. Maybe he should find out. Maybe he should—

“When I first met you,” Otabek finally breaks the silence, “I felt sorry for you.”

Something cold stabs into Yuri’s gut, and suddenly it’s hard to be looking into Otabek’s eyes. He lets himself fall back onto his haunches. He lets himself slouch in careful indifference.

“I saw you,” Otabek continues, “and you seemed like an automaton. Always following someone else’s commands. Executing them perfectly. You weren’t even happy about it.”

“I wasn’t.” Yuri swallows, raw honesty scraping at his throat. “Ballet was just a tool. I would have done anything to win.”

“I know,” Otabek says, and he sounds so disgustingly gentle that Yuri wishes that they never started talking about this, that this — whatever _this_ is — never existed.

Otabek has been like that from the beginning, though. Blunt and unconcerned about the words of others; someone that desperate, ten-year-old Yuri wanted to be. Otabek saw the scared child behind the skater, and he didn’t care. Yuri supposes that if there is one thing that he’s grateful about, it’s just that: Otabek didn’t care, then. And Yuri cared maybe too much, and somehow, it seemed to work out. It worked out because if nothing else, Otabek is still here by Yuri’s side, five years on.

Yuri thinks that maybe he’s the only person who has never expected anything from Yuri. Maybe because of that, he might be the only one to expect everything from him.

“It’s enough to be who you are,” Otabek eventually says, and Yuri doesn’t ask: ‘is that enough for you?’

* * *

_Winter, 2018_

Pyeongchang is a resort town set amongst white-brushed slopes, gentle giants majestic in the distance. But where the skaters are competing and housed— they’re at Gangneung, a coastal city. Not too far. The salt of the sea breeze reminds Yuri of St. Petersburg, although of course it’s not exactly the same.

Here, the Olympic Village is composed of clean lines and minimalistic wood; none of that Petersburgian decadence of eras past. Here, also, a haze of foreign syllables settles around him. The anonymity of it all is comforting; he’s within it, but not of it.

And here, the air is cold, the sky heart-stoppingly blue, and the first competition is the team event; it’s on Friday.

So— two days. He has time.

If Yuri thinks about it, the Village is really just a series of dollhouses to be filled with occupants for two weeks; afterwards, it’ll abruptly be emptied into a temporary ghost town. But now, its sidewalks are brimming with crowds of people. There’s a festive character to the air, and Yuri can taste the collective culmination of years and years of dreams, of hopes. Almost a tangible flavour in his mouth.

And the athletes here— they all seem like maybe they’ll still be alright if gold shies from their reach. Maybe having had the chance is enough. Just treat it like any other competition, Lilia told him. This is nothing special.

On his motorbike, the full brunt of wind lashes against his face. The air threads through the tips of his hair, and right here, right now— he could go anywhere. He could go anywhere he wants, but he’s choosing to stay. Choosing to come back.

Otabek’s there in the distance, outside one of those dollhouse hotels. Yuri can see him talking to someone; a teammate, maybe. He isn’t wearing his Team Kazakhstan jacket. Nothing particularly marks him out as an athlete, and Yuri thinks that maybe _they_ — whatever _they_ are — would perhaps be easier if they hadn’t chosen this punishing life. Meeting only at competitions, simultaneously friend, foe, and complicated feelings.

If they had known how far to go, and how far along to be able to say: enough.

But that’s not either of them.

As if instinctively, Otabek looks up when Yuri nears. Excuses himself from his companion. Watches as Yuri slows to a halt in front of him.

Yuri grins at him. Detaches his spare helmet, chucks it at Otabek. “Are you getting on, or not?”

Otabek catches it neatly and smiles. “Hey.” Swings himself behind Yuri on the seat; a smooth, practised motion.

In front of them is the sea, behind: the mountains.

“Where d’you want to go?” Yuri asks, something like giddiness inside his chest. It’s the lightness he gets when he’s mid-air after a perfect axel take-off; like flying, like freedom. “We could go anywhere you like.”

Otabek laughs. It’s unexpected, and familiar, and Yuri thinks that he can match his heartbeat to the sound. It feels inevitable. It feels like coming home.

“I don’t care, Yuri,” Otabek says. He shifts around, and then his arms are warm against Yuri’s waist. “Just take me away from here.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Check out creatures-from-starlight's beautiful [tumblr](http://creatures-from-starlight.tumblr.com) and [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/creatures_from_starlight)!


End file.
